A message to Alyssa.

I tried to respond to my former best friend, after she explained to me how everything looked from her perspective about the mess I was right around high school and first semester of college, after leaving my ex and trying to move on. At this time, I was stupid and asked her to lie for me, and I was still lying about certain things myself. I tried to respond to her, but it looks like she blocked me. So I’m posting my letter here out of context so hopefully she can see it.

Here we go.

“Three things I want to say right this second, and then I’ll address the rest when I’m not running around.

1. I’m paranoid about Henryk because he didn’t leave me alone for years after we’d broken up. He had been pretending to be me and sending men online my address and phone number and all the pictures he’d amassed. Because, and this I cannot prove but through my memory, I sat with my stepdad’s hacker friend Jay and I watched him enter the IP address of the “hacker” into a tracker. It traced it back to West Point. So chances are, Henryk was the one actually behind it. Or someone he knew. And Jay is family for me, not Bud, so I trust him. I should not have trusted Bud, as he took advantage of me. But Jay would’ve killed Bud if he ever found out what he ended up doing. And so, with that knowledge, I tracked down tons of revenge porn posted online and fended off some eager “suitors” and Henryk kept bothering me to listen to him until about 2011. He hasn’t contacted me since, but I still have nightmares that I’ll see him. Aside from the probable “hacking” he had pressured me through our whole relationship to do things sexually that I was neither ready for nor wanted. But he pushed and he pushed and he wore me down and pushed right past my consent. A lot of that affected me. I didn’t know at the time that it was not okay–my sex education had been from 8th grade health class and my mom’s policy of “watch movies” and I thought our tumultuous relationship was romantic instead of really, really unhealthy and rapey. And he’d pretended not to remember the worst instances. I’d be crying in the shower and he’d come in and ask what was wrong like nothing happened. I won’t go into a lot more detail but it really messed me up.

2. I should NEVER have asked you to lie for me. Lying was a fallback for me, a safety net I had that was totally unhealthy and wrong. I lied about Ana’s existence, I lied about my “history of drug use” and I lied about how many men I’d been with (2 at the time–I said more). I felt these things added to my worth when I felt worthless, and I continued them for a long time because they were all I had and it was too late to come clean. But I did come clean, eventually, and I’ve vowed to keep lying as far from my life as possible. It’s toxic and it does nothing but hurt. I don’t want to excuse it, it was so wrong. But some things I didn’t lie about and I know I have to earn the trust back in order for people to believe me. I get that, I do, and I’m willing to do the work and own up to my mistakes. I’ve grown up a lot since all of this, and I understand now how my words and actions can hurt more than just myself. I’m very sorry I ever asked you to lie for me.

3. Here’s the tricky one–I’ve very clearly remember your sister telling me that you still vocally hated me, which naturally made me nervous as I knew you and Henryk were Facebook friends. It was about not trusting Henryk and not wanting him back in my life. However, I can’t prove it because my Facebook messenger doesn’t have the history on it with her. She defriended me after telling me this and then friend requested me back, and I don’t know if that was it or what but it deleted my history with her. I understand if you don’t believe me, but I’m willing to swear on my son that she said it, and I don’t take anything with my son lightly, he is my entire world and more.

I was going to respond more later but it seems you’ve blocked me. I’m posting this on my blog in hopes you will see it, because I do feel it’s important and I gave YOU the chance to talk, so I think it’s fair that you give me the same chance.”

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